“He just has to do everything fast, and I don’t know why,” Omameh said. “I think we’ve kind of adapted to his … I guess, uh … method of speaking. We say he be speaking Florida.”

Yes, I'm a sucker for ungrammatical uses of "be." Also I find it hard to believe why Omameh thinks Denard Robinson doesn't have to do everything fast. He completed a Rubik's Cube before it was invented. He can't eat eggs. When he gets in a Ferrari the car tries to shift him. He's too fast for eggs! What does that even mean HE'S TOO FAST TO FIND OUT

AAAAH

“It’s just real fast,” Omameh said. “Everything is just super sped up. I’m like, ‘You know, you can slow down a little bit if you want us to run the play right. But, you don’t have to.’"

More McGary. Sam Webb's latest article in the News is on Mitch McGary with more from McGary's (and Glenn Robinson's) tough-talking AAU coach Wayne Brumm:

"The post player is intimately and intricately involved in John Beilein's system," Brumm explained. "I don't know anybody who runs a better offensive system for a post player than Michigan. So I have to say, why not (Michigan as a possible destination)? Everybody else is (analyzing McGary's recruitment) like they're a friggin fan. We're trying to pick a school that is in Mitch's best interest."

Brumm added: "John Beilein can flat-out coach. The people I talk to and the coaches I talk to, I'll flat-out tell you — they are scared of John Beilein. They are worried about the day he starts getting the talent that they've got (at their schools). He's been at a bunch of places that he couldn't recruit high-major talent. Now he's at Michigan and it looks like he is making some headway there. When he starts with an even slate in terms of talent, look out! Look what he did last year. Look what he did with Darius Morris, Timmy Hardaway, and look what he has done with Jordan Morgan. My goodness, isn't anybody paying attention?"

That sounds like a guy who would like McGary to hit up Ann Arbor. On this morning's WTKA recruiting roundup, Webb delivered the "gut feeling" on McGary's top three: Michigan, Maryland, and Florida. No disrespect to those programs but that's a lot less of a mountain to hurdle than UK, UNC, and Duke, the other schools he plans to visit. I'm kind of thinking this is going well. Listen to the roundup—Webb won't say it (specifically disclaims it, actually) but it sounds like he believes this is happening.

Brumm also literally states that Bacari Alexander "gets it." WOO!

Mattison on the trail. Wolverine Nation—how is that URL even available?—has launched. They've put Tom behind a paywall and don't have an RSS feed, but here's this excellent article from Mike Rothstein on Greg Mattison's recruiting style:

"He didn't realize at the time just how expensive they were," former Texas A&M defensive coordinator Bob Davie said. "The business manager brought him in and they could have bought a new car with how much he spent on that mobile phone. I'll never forget that.

"That's just how he does it. He's going to work harder than anybody."

Rothstein hits up Mattison's head coach from back in the day when he was a D-line coach at Northwestern and various players from his Notre Dame days.

The other guy. ND DC Bob Diaco on Denard:

"Unfortunately it just is what it is," defensive coordinator Bob Diaco said. "We need to be perfect, because any little crease and it's over, he's gone. It's not like, somebody hits a crease and he rattles for eight, 10 yards and you get him on the ground. This guy hits the crease and he can punch a hole in the top of the defense like that." …

"It's just a monumental task defending a runner at quarterback in particular, that it almost gives you the feeling like they're playing with 12," Diaco said. "It's a problem."

This game will not only be the first real opportunity to see what Borges does with Denard, it will be a major hype-check on Diaco. After his defense gave up 35 in a humiliating loss to Navy that had option-savvy Middies in disbelief that anyone could be so incompetent:

Navy wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. Kelly and Diaco just have absolutely no clue how the Navy offense works. …

If Diaco and Kelly hadn’t seen it before, then I have no idea what film they’ve been watching, or if they even watched any at all. That isn’t even hyperbole; they thought that Navy’s fullback ran through the A gap. And that was their plan– to send the inside linebackers crashing into the A gap that nobody was running through. That just made those LBs easier to block as either the fullback or quarterback ran right by them and into the secondary. …

What’s almost as incredible as this horrible game plan is the fact that despite Kelly’s assertion to the contrary, Notre Dame never adjusted. Those ILBs kept running into the A gap for the entire game. Once or twice Te’o scraped outside to make a play in the backfield, and I’d think,”OK, now we’ll see something else.” But we didn’t. Notre Dame would go right back to the same old thing on the next play, and the Mids would pick up a big gain.

Diaco appeared clueless in a media interview soon after. The next week his D gave up almost 400 yards and 28 points in a loss to Tulsa and people were screaming for his head. The next four games were all wins in which ND game up 17 or fewer points.

That stretch:

Three points ceded to Utah, a mediocre offense.

Three against Army, whatever.

16 against USC in a driving rainstorm slopfest in which the Trojans were helmed by Mitch Mustain.

17 against Miami in a game where Jacory Harris threw three picks on seven attempts and was yanked for Stephen Morris, who averaged 8.5 YPA but threw a pick of his own.

Last week USF only got 250 yards but BJ Daniels is horrible. Is the improvement real or a mirage? No idea.

I'm like what? Your game programs for ND are going to be electronical:

Each gameday program includes an audio file of "The Catch," Desmond Howard's famous touchdown against Notre Dame twenty years ago.

But it's not just the audio of the call, from the announcers that day — Frank Beckmann for the Michigan Sports Network and Brent Musburger for ABC — it also includes the play call from Michigan's head football coach at the time Gary Moeller and sound from Michigan quarterback Elvis Grbac in the huddle.

That's kind of cool. Fifteen bucks cool? I'll listen to yours.

BONUS: Darren Rovell suggests there is a person in this world whose "dream" was to "embed the audio file of a famous play into a gameday program." Reach for the stars.

Blog content. NKOTB From Hope There Is Glory is not a Notre Dame blog, but a Michigan blog sporting statistical breakdowns of the WMU game. Here's a section:

Passes attempted against

Passes completed against

Jordan Kovacs

3

1

Thomas Gordon

3

1

Courtney Avery

3

2

J.T. Floyd

2

1

Troy Woolfolk

1

1

I have a powerful disagreement about Dileo "dropping" a ball that was well behind him in a storm, but nits will be picked. Make sure to check out the special teams analysis! (Seriously, though, if someone wants to get linked on the regular figuring out WTF is going on with kicks and kick returns is a good idea.)

I think it needs to be clarified that, while the piping on the uni's was announced after Rodriguez was hired, I believe it was reported that those new uniforms were designed well before Rodriguez was even a thing, if you know what I mean (although I don't think that was the intent or implication).

The only real Adidas "innovation" was the big torso stripes (which I kind of liked (hey, it's an away jersey, give it some color) but am in a clear minority on). Piping was brought in originally by Nike. The new jersey is totally sans piping, which is a nice look and different from anything we've done recently. It's good to know Adidas can still design a nice "clean" jersey and not just busy overdesigned get-ups like the UTL jersey.

In the Rick Leach days there were narrow maize & blue stripes around the shoulders on the white Jersey ... I liked that look. Maybe someone who actually knows how to post an image can dig up an old #7 photo to clarify.

Now I'd like to see the collars and rings around the ends of the arms be white rather than blue (too Penn St. for me).

Our home jersey should be blue, with maize numbers...our away jersey should be white, with blue numbers and maize outline OR (my preference) maize numbers with blue outline. That's it!

I would rather us wear blue pants on the road than add piping on the jersey.

This is funny because my random thought during my daily 10 minute space out during work was: I wonder if Hoke will do anything to the away unis? And then it went to...we should take the piping off. Then it went to...if anyone is going to do it, it would be Hoke.

We run so many sprint rollouts, rocket screens, QB sweeps, QB powers, etc. with movement forced in one direction, it would be a home run to have a counter draw off of that just like we have the "DRob pull up and pass to the slot" play that works so well.

I doubt we have much to worry about Maryland if he and his AAU coach are looking for a program that has a good offensive system for post players. Turgeon's offense at Texas A&M was pretty terrible and post play seemed to decline from what it was under Billy Gillispie.

If ever there was a time for Sam's gut to be right....this would be one of the bigger times.

And I wonder how much losing Mattison hurt our recruiting after '96. We had already gotten the guys who would play through 2000, and we pretty much continued to haul in offensive talent, but I wonder if some of the drop off on defense could have been contributed to by his departure. Not that Jim Herrmann wasn't mister charm, buuuutttt....

I like how his top four teams from the conference are all from the "West" Division (Neb, Mich, MSU and Iowa)...I guess I can't blame him because he's probably just as confused as the rest of us as to who plays in which division...

I like that the piping is gone this is possible the best looking away jersey we have had in a long time especially with the block M on the rear neck. I have never been a fan of any of the stripes on the away jerseys slevees or anywhere else. Also I may be a minority here but I like the way the white jerseys look with the whit pants that they have been using in practice.

While our homes are undisputed classics, I think our away unis have always had their ups and downs, and this is a major improvement. Getting rid of the piping gives our jerseys a simple elegance in place of meaningless yellow piping. I'd also be open to white pants with the away unis, as long as we don't get all Maryland, which we won't.